November 2015 Meeting

Our meeting opened with the customary round robin introductions and there were a number of new faces -- welcome!  I counted about 37 of us in attendance this month which is among our best attended meetings.  After the introductions we went right into the business portion of the meeting.  One important item that came up was that some of our members had difficulty with your orders placed during the recent Lie-Nielsen tool event.  Beth had ordered a number of chisels that were back-ordered.  Only problem is she was never informed about the delay so had been sitting on her front porch (in one of her own chairs I may add!) waiting for the UPS truck -- she ended up canceling the order.  Jamie too had a problem with being billed twice for the same item.  In their defense, L-N told Jamie they had a replacement crew going to Las Vegas that weekend and they weren't properly trained.

Christmas Party 

Our end of the year Christmas party is always a great event.  Many of you bring your spouses or significant others to share in the festivities.  With the money left over from the voluntary dues Jamie buys not only party goodies but also uses cold, hard cash for several drawings that we'll have.  Anyone who paid their dues is eligible for the drawing plus anyone who did a demonstration gets their name in again.  

The main focus will be on the anonymous, people's choice award for the best toy brought in for judging.  There is no limit on the amount or type of wood used for your toy project.  We will send out a notice telling you when to bring in your toy.  Jamie will display all of them during that Christmas meeting for voting.  Once the votes are tallied the winner will be announced.  If you choose to, Mike will take the toys for donation into the Marine Corps Toys for Tots program.  He's active in that organization.  Mike also told us about a Poker Tournament that will be held at Santa Fe station, Sunday Dec. 6 at 12:00 noon.  All of the money generated there will go to the Toys for Tots program too, all the donations stay right here in Southern Nevada.

Blog Writer Needed

We are looking for someone to take over my position as the blog writer --- here's your chance to hone your literary skills!  Diane and I will be moving to Scottsdale, AZ at the beginning of the year and will live there for the next 6 months.  She was awarded a scholarship at the Scottsdale Artists School and we decided to take this as an opportunity to celebrate our 20th. anniversary.  Although I think she's a fantastic artist already, you know it will never hurt to improve our skills by learning and observing what others in our field do already.  If you'd like to see some of her work here is a LINK to her gallery site.  I plan on working more on carving and gilding frames; hopefully to find a market there to sell them.  I've enjoyed writing the blog all these years and perhaps it's time to get someone else to step up and put their own spin on it.  Contact Jamie or myself if you're interested. 

Show & Tell

Show and tell began with Randy thanking all of the members who came to the cottonwood bark event that was held during the Woodcarvers of Las Vegas meeting at Woodworkers Emporium.  During his presentation last month he brought up the event, here is a LINK to their blog about it.  The woodcarvers meet every fourth Saturday of the month.  Several members went to the woodcarvers meeting and accomplished making what we started to call "Gnome Homes".

John's with firewood for winter

Wills example

Pam's work

Mom's with paint

One of Will's Puzzles

Will mentioned that he has his own on-line Etsy shop called PuzzlingLife.  Here's a LINK so you can check out his work.

Beth brought in one of a set of chairs she's been working on and, in keeping with her theme; you can see how she laminates various pieces of material for the seat and back.
John showed off this bowl which is currently in the process of drying so it'll "distort" to its final shape.  This was made from the Mesquite that Mike brought to the meeting a month or two ago so is an example of turning green wood.








Keeping with the theme of bowl turning, Lupe decided to "repurpose" a cutting board she'd made previously and turned them to produce these great looking bowls.










Another example of carving was brought in by Persi.  These are parts of a door frame he is currently working on that measures approximately 80" tall by 43" wide.  To be able to handle them in his shop they are made up of sections which will eventually be joined together.












Adam brought in some examples of an antique piece that he needed to cut up for a display at his work.  It was really interesting to see how the joinery was cut exact and held together by dowels.  No pocket screws or biscuits back then!

Show & Tell

Our featured presenter was Mike Cook who brought in his amazing Celtic designed work.   He's really developed a distinctive style of carving --- when you see it you immediately recognize it as his work.  He's only been pursuing this particular style for about 4 years but as you can see, he's perfected it!  To get to the skill level he's achieved Mike has taken classes from Dennis Patchett, enrolled in on-line classes offered by Mary May and Chris Pye, but basically spent many hours in his shop carving away!  

Questions that always come up when we see work of this caliber relate to tools, sharpening, and finishing.  Mike has amassed quite a collection of tools as these pictures show -- and there are even more in his shop!

When you carve it's important to have the proper sized gouge in every sweep possible to achieve the consistent curves and cuts that Mikes' work shows.  To keep them sharp he started with out using stones but they have been supplemented with a buffer fitted with a hard, wool wheel and also a formed leather wheel.  These use a buffing compound/rouge made by Formax and available from Lee Valley. Here's a LINK to a page from them but you can find much of these supplies locally as well.  He also makes a slip from Basswood cut by V-tools.  This is then coated with a compound and becomes the exact size required to hone that particular tool.
His patterns come from a number of sources but one he mentioned was tattoo images from the internet.  He copies them on his phone then goes to Staples where they are able to enlarge them to whatever size he wants.  Patterns are cut using chisels and gouges of various size to match the curvature.  FYI: gouges are sized with two numbers; size is expressed in millimeters and the amount of curvature is called sweep.  These number from 1 (flat) to 12 (almost a U).  He'll annotate his pattern with the chisel number to make his work easier.  A tool he has found to be very helpful in removing some of the small bits and pieces in corners is a Porter Cable 450 compact router fitted with a solid carbide bit.  Getting the background of the carvings perfectly flat is really difficult.  To disguise the discrepancies,  Mike uses punches to texture and even it out.  These brought lots of comments so here is a LINK where you can buy your own set.  Being a Dutchman, I need to point out that you can make your own using mild steel and filing the ends to suit your own needs.

He has developed a beautiful finish for his work.  Just like many other things in our craft, it has been a process of trial and error to find the finish that suits him.  Much of Mike's work is done in Basswood.  It's used because it has uniform grain, holds details well, and is relatively easy to carve, however; it tends to be a nondescript wood.  He gets his finishing materials primarily from Tri-Color Paints on Valley View here in Las Vegas.  Here's a LINK to their website.  Basically, he begins with 2 coats of thin shellac followed by a vinyl sanding sealer.  These are sprayed on.  After that they will be stained and glazed to get the desired finish.  As I mentioned, finishes are the results of trial and error.  Mike uses burgundy scotch pads between finishes and also various brushing techniques to get what he wants.  Finishing is an area many of us struggle with because after all of our hard work to complete the project the finish can totally screw things up!!  Looks like Mike has conquered that as these pictures of his work prove.

Thanks Mike for a great presentation -- I have the feeling that many of our members will be  trying their hand and carving and picking up some chisels soon.

  

November Meeting this Wednesday 11/18

     Time flies by for us! Here it is almost time for our monthly meeting at the WoodItIs studio located at 2267 Gowan Road, North Las Vegas, Unit 106.  For any of you that need more information or directions you can call Jamie at her shop/school at 702-631-1870.  As always, the public is invited so bring your neighbor, spouse, or significant other to share what you do on these Wednesday nights.  We will have our usual short business meeting and discuss upcoming events.  One of those events is our end of the year party with the voting of your toys.  We failed to mention our traditional competition for the cash gift certificates last month but don't forget to make a toy that will be judged anonymously during our year end party.   The rules and information will be explained at the meeting and also the follow-up blog.

     There will a show and tell session where you can share with the group your latest project, tool, technique, etc. It's always nice to see what our members have created during the past month.  As always, limit your talk to around five minutes or so -- we need to allow our featured presenter all the time needed.  If you have a technique or project you'd like to share with the whole group see Jamie so she can schedule for future meetings.  Sharing your skills with others is one of the main focuses of the group.

    Our featured presenter this month will be Mike Cook who carves these outstanding Celtic inspired crosses among other things.  He's really perfected his style of carving on these inter-twined elements on his crosses.

He plans to not only bring in several examples of his beautiful work but also explain and demonstrate how he goes about achieving it.  In addition, the finish he uses creates a sense of age and importance to his work -- you'd think they were found on some Viking vessel of old rather than being created here in the southwest desert!

    As you know, seating can be hard to come by so you're encouraged to bring your own chair if you'd like.

Come to the meeting and be inspired by the work Mike does,  see you tomorrow night --- John

October 2015 Meeting: Woodcarving

And so it begins ---- on Wednesday the 21st., we had about 23 members attend our monthly meeting:

Waiting for the Start

As you can see, the featured presentation has to do with carving so there were all kinds of little caricatures looking back at us.  Jamie wasn't too crazy about some of "the eyes" staring at the audience while Randy gave his presentation!  As is customary, we began with the round robin introductions and it seems as if we had a low key response tonight, even a number of folks sneaking in after the meeting began; were they hoping to be anonymous today?  During the introductions Ed brought up (subtly of course) the fact that he was the national winner at the AWFS show and is now the proud owner of a SawStop --- what luck he had to be selected.  Congratulations Ed!!  Jamie mentioned that voicing problems about certain manufacturers booths and their lack of customer service brought results.  If you went to the show you too probably encountered some booths that were friendly and eager to share their information with you and then some others that seemed to care less.  One of those, SuperMax; was mentioned by Jamie in her blog and she was contacted by the president of the company to apologize.  Good for them!  One other item of business was the Lie-Nielsen tool event held at WoodItIs.  According to Jamie, the turn out seemed to be better than last year but she wondered if the revenue may have been less.  Several members mentioned that the addition of a booth manned by Dennis and Scott demonstrating their carving skills was a great success and addition to the event.

Show & Tell

The theme of our meeting was caricature carving. Neal brought in some of his relief carving examples to share for contrast.  As you can see, he also paints them for more contrast --- seems pretty relaxed and laid back tonight.  Carving is a pretty relaxing endeavor isn't it Neal?

Purple Heart & Myrtle wood Tie

Bracelets

The Worthen family brought in items to share as well.  The entire family obviously spends time in the shop creating various items out of wood.  Starting with the Dad, Billy who brought in some lathe turned bracelets and a wooden tie!  The bracelets are Myrtle wood and Olive wood.  This tie (modeled by our very own Jim C.) is made from Purpleheart and Myrtle wood.

His son Will is also active in the workshop and brought in this very intricate, scroll saw cut jig saw puzzle.  You can see the skill needed to cut those intricate pieces so flawlessly.  Not to be left out was Heather, the Mom.  She practices the craft of pyrography which utilizes a wood burning pen to "burn" an image onto the wood.  She further enhances the burning process with water colors.  Many of her pieces originate from her own photographs.  If you're unfamiliar with this craft, here is a LINK showing what a basic wood burning pen looks like.  Heather explained it's by using different tips and adjusting the heat settings that she's able to come up with these beautiful creations.

 

Our final show and tell for the evening was brought in by Adam.  Since it is a rather large bar he showed it to us on his phone.  He works for a convention company that builds displays and obviously this was for a liquor convention.  Adam said he learned a lot of different aspects on the project including how to work with various laminates and aluminum edging.  After the meeting he, Jamie, and myself were talking about having a way to share projects our members have made using a Pico Projector.  Now, you know me -- hand cut joints, hand planed surfaces, etc. so this new fangled electronic stuff is somewhat of a mystery!  Here's a LINK explaining the basics of a Pico Projector.  Jamie thought it may be something we'd want to invest some of the club funds in so our members could share projects that are too big to bring to the meetings.  Think about that, I'm guessing it may come up as an item for our next meeting.

Featured Presentation

Randy Glau -- Carving Presentation

Randy began his carving career on a serious level after retiring from 30 years in the steel mill.  Obviously, wood is going to work much easier than steel to create all of the caricatures he's created in the 10 years since retirement!  He started out with a book and a knife by copying what he saw on the pages of that book until his first block of wood looked like something totally different.  He found this to be a enjoyable and challenging endeavor and soon found a local woodcarving club where his skills and abilities continued to increase to the excellent body of work he brought to the meeting.  His preference is to add a bit of color to his carvings, a process that begins with a light coat of Deft to partially seal the wood.  He then uses a craft grade of acrylic paint that has been thinned quite a bit,  this allows the wood grain to show through and the final results are a carving that has an aged appearance to it.  

Cypress Knee

He generally uses basswood for his work but showed examples of other materials he's worked with including this Cyprus knee.  He mentioned carving one of these that happened to have eight "things" sticking up.  He turned that into Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs -- I've seen that piece and it's a show stopper!

Knowing Randy personally I'll share something I learned about him -- he always has a piece of wood and a knife handy no matter where he goes.  You'll even find wood chips inside of his car!  When he goes shopping with his wife he doesn't mind at all if she takes her time selecting what she needs, he just pulls out a knife and goes to work.  He mentioned a multi-bladed knife made by Flexcut called the Carvin' Jack.  There are many places to buy these, including locally at Woodworkers Emporium.  Here is a LINK from Amazon showing various models but let me encourage you to buy local if possible.

Some of Randy's Tools

Like all woodworking pursuits, tools are a requirement.  According to Randy, you can get by with just a fairly basic knife but it's best to buy a quality one so it'll work the wood and not frustrate you --- cheaply made tools are no bargain!  As you progress with woodcarving you'll probably fine yourself buying tools as needed to get the results you want.  A trick he shared was one he learned from his carving mentor back in Chicago.  He discovered that many old kitchen knives have excellent steel and can be re-purposed for carving.  You could find those at garage sales and customize them for your needs.  

Stella says: "where's the dog proportion chart?"

Even though the caricatures tend to be a somewhat comical representation of people, the proportions need to be correct.  To help you with that you can find charts that size the human body according to head. Randy brought in a couple of them and I imagine they're available on line and art supply stores.  When it comes to actually carving the wood there are probably as many approaches as there are carvers but Randy gave us a couple of insights as to his process.  First of all, he suggested that if the carving has a hat, do that first and then scale everything else below it to "fit under the hat".  You should always cut away from yourself as you carve and hold the knife in such a way that you are creating a fulcrum point to pivot the tool rather than wildly pushing it away as you carve.  It's always a necessity to re-draw your design while you're working on it.  Very easy to lose sight of what you hope to carve because you continually cut away the design during the process.

When it comes to tools and keeping them sharp there are probably as many variations as there are people who use them!  Randy shared some of his techniques with us on his approach to tool care, use, and sharpening.  He suggests stropping your tool after every 15 minutes or so of use to maintain the edge.  In this way, you rarely need to sharpen that tool unless you drop it of course!  Here's a LINK to a short video showing his stropping technique using a honing powder.

Randy and Dennis started a woodcarving club that meets the fourth Saturday of every month at Woodworkers Emporium.  Here is a LINK to their latest newsletter.  Randy brought in these examples of carving Cottonwood bark houses which was an activity for last Saturday's meeting (10/24).  Members that attended were 3 of the Worthen family, Neal, plus my wife and I.  For $5.00 we all had a good lesson and start on making our own Gnome Home!  There is another class scheduled for next year dealing with chip carving.  That person has a bunch of Basswood boxes and will demonstrate and teach how to go about carving those.  If you're interest was piqued by Randy's excellent presentation, mark your calendar and plan to spend a Saturday seeing more of what carvings all about.  Woodcarvers of Las Vegas meets from 9-12 on the 4th. Saturday of each month.  I'll leave you with some images of the houses and chip carving.

Cottonwood Bark House

Houses done by Bob Pearce

Chip Carved Box Lids

And at the end of the meeting, Randy grabbed his hat (wooden!) and headed out the door.

And at the 

October Meeting Tomorrow!

Hope this guy got your attention, besides the usual happenings we customarily have at our monthly meeting like the business part, show and tell, and of course our round robin self introductions; our featured presenter is Randy Glau.  Dennis and he started the Woodcarvers of Las Vegas group that meets at Woodworkers Emporium.

Randy has been carving for well over 10 years and much of his training and experience was obtained by attending weekly meetings of a carvers club in Illinois plus attending classes to learn his own, unique style of carving.  He prefers doing work "in the round" rather than flat relief work.  Hopefully he'll bring a number of his whimsical carvings to his presentation.  I've seen a many of them personally and his caricatures have a unique quality that make them his own creations.  One bit of advice he was told and follows is to not try to do an actual representation of someone -- they'll never be happy with it! We tend to see ourselves in a different light than we actually are.

The meeting will be at Jamie's studio/school  Wood It Is located at 2267 West Gowan #106 in North Las Vegas.  Should you have an questions or need further directions you can call her at 702-631-1870. Our meetings are open to the public so feel free to invite any of your friends who have expressed an interest in woodworking and especially caricature carving.  You know the drill about limited seating so bring your own if needed.

See you there ---  John

September 2015 Meeting

As the time for the meeting got closer and closer I was starting to wonder if our members were more interested in the televised debate than to come to the meeting.  With 10 minutes to go, attendance looked a little sparse!  Politicians vs. wood --- how can that be?

I didn't think the politicians would win out over the woodworkers and by the time we started we had a good group of 26 or so, heck some even had to stand in the back.




     We began the meeting with our customary round robin introductions and there were a couple of first timers, welcome to you!  As far as our business portion of the meeting went there are a couple of exciting events coming up next month.  Let's start with this one:  Lie-Nielsen Tool Event will be at Jamie's again this year.  Check out the link for a video and more information about it. They will be here Friday and Saturday the 16th. and 17th. of October.  They usually invite a few select craftsman to set up a booth at these events and this year Dennis Patchett our accomplished carver was invited to show his work and skills.
     The Woodcarvers club that meets at Woodworkers Emporium has a few classes in the planning stage.  One will be on chip carving and the other will focus on carving Cottonwood bark.  You may recall that Dennis and Randy brought in some examples of that type of work.  They meet the fourth Saturday of the month.
     The Summerlin Craft Fair will be held in October as well.  It has changed its location from the park on Town Center Drive to the new, outdoor mall located by the Red Rock Casino.  The dates are October 10-11 and Downtown Summerlin is located on Charleston Blvd. west and the 215 Beltway.  Not sure if any other members will be having a booth there but I will be set up with boxes and some furniture pieces.
     Lastly, Mike noticed a neighbor cutting down a Mesquite tree so brought many pieces of it for and had it "up for grabs" for the many turners in our group.  I saw all of them going out the door at the end of the meeting -- Thanks Mike!

Show & Tell

     Speaking of wood turners, of the many members in our group that have gotten the bug, John brought in these examples of his latest work.  These are examples of green wood turnings that take on some very interesting shapes as the wood air dries after being cut green.  Wood for these were Apple and some sort of a Pepper tree.  It's a little difficult to tell but notice how the rim of the one on the left is beginning to distort a little?  That's what occurs after cutting the wood green as it begins to dry out.  Nice work John!

     I brought in this portable easel and palette made from some of the leftover Mahogany from the Armoire.  It's a light weight assembly that an artist (my wife) can take for painting outdoors or attending workshops.  It's used in conjunction with a camera tripod.  The easel portion attaches by using the camera clip that comes with the tripod.  The lower section is used for the paint palette, brushes, thinner, rags, etc.

Featured Presentation: Beth Wheeler 

Beth and her Chair

     Beth recently returned from a week long, chair making workshop with Jeff Lefkowitz.  Here is a LINK to his website.  Although you may not be familiar with his name, many of you have heard of Brian Boggs and his chair making expertise.  Here is a LINK to his site as well.  The reason both of these names are brought up is because Jeff started out making chairs on his own but then, like Beth; took a class from Brian.  He and Brian hit it off and eventually he became the only person authorized to teach the skill of making a Brian Boggs chair to others.  An interesting note here is that although you can learn to make one, only Brian Boggs is allowed to sell them; the ones you make are for personal use only!

Extra Legs

     Before she left for the class which is located in Virginia she made arrangements to buy an additional set of back legs and also enough bark to make another chair when she arrived back in Las Vegas.  These are carefully selected since they need to be steamed and then placed in a form Jeff made for about a week.  Each leg blank needs to be steamed for 2-3 hours then quickly placed in the form and allowed to dry for a week or so in a heated closet.  A unique feature of them is that they are canted at about 45 degrees to orient the wood grain for optimum joint strength.

     Once the legs are ready to be worked and turned into these beautiful chairs the joints are cut where needed but Beth found a new passion in using a shave horse to transfer these square pieces of material into beautifully sculpted legs.  This process begins with a drawknife and ends with a spokeshave.  There is a video at the end of this blog where she did a short demonstration of this process.

Shave Horse Example

     A shave horse is a device that captures the wood in a vise that has pressure applied with your feet.  Matter of fact, Beth was so enthralled by this device she ordered one for herself that was waiting for her at home when she returned from the workshop!  The process of making a square piece round begins by cutting of the corners to create an octagon.

From square to round!

These are then basically halved so you create a 16 sided piece then once more to create a 32 sided piece.  By drawing lines around it every couple of inches you get a visual of how much material is taken off with a spokeshave as the stock becomes round.


     Due to the time involved in making the rungs for the chair, Jeff had these lathe turned and ready for the workshop students to use.  The official length of time for the workshop is 6 days so it was necessary for the rungs to be ready when the class started.

Chair Jig 

   

     Locating and cutting in all of the needed holes for the rungs, seat, legs, and arms was simplified with the use of this jig which Beth also bought for making her second chair.  As part of the course, Jeff provides a very complete manual that shows how to make the chair.  The last part to be assembled are the arms.  When you look at it they seem to be tenoned into the rear leg and also onto the front leg -- a process that really isn't possible!  Instead, the fronts have a small recess used to locate them and they are then drilled and pinned from above.  Beth hand carved these pin tops into an octagon shape.

The pins used to secure the back slats to the legs were also carved into a pyramid shape.  Now that the chair is completely assembled it's time to turn your attention to weaving the seat.  A number of materials could be used; Shaker tape, rush, seagrass, etc. and Beth decided to go with Hickory bark which as you can see is a great contrast to the Walnut of the chair.  The bark is harvested in the spring and I believe she said there are about 200 feet of it required for one chair.  It's kept wet so it remains pliable for the weaving process and the first step is to wrap the strips from front to back.  Most seats are wider in the front than in the rear so to compensate for that design feature those strips at the outer edges needed to be tapered.  This is done with a knife.

Waxed cord to splice Hickory 

After the seat is wrapped from front to back weaving the pattern begins going from side to side.  Bark pieces start out about 20 feet in length so at first you're pulling these long pieces over, under, around, and through each of the wrap strands.  To join them together you plan a splice at the bottom which is attached with waxed cord.  A very time consuming but interesting process --- until you realize you missed a strand!  Just saying, not that I've ever done that!!  The end result is a seat that is both comfortable and beautiful.

Completed Seat

All in all, this workshop gave Beth everything she was looking for as her woodworking skills continue to grow.  It had an emphasis on the use of hand tools which was one of her main objectives.  She'll now be reaching for a card scraper rather than a sheet of sandpaper, grabbing a chisel instead of a router, and enjoying the process hand tools can bring. 

      Beth showed how to use the drawknife and spokeshave to take square stock and make it round.  The process is one where the stock is taken from square to an 8 sided piece (octagon), then 16 sided, and finally 32 sided mostly with the drawknife.  She then refines that piece with the spokeshave until it is as round as possible.  Here the stock is in a vise which is a bit awkward -- remember she gave herself the present of a shaving horse which is now in her shop to make this process much easier and enjoyable!